Dorothy Garlock (26 page)

He hadn’t kissed her for any reason other than he wanted
to.

She drew in a deep, quivering breath and began to smile. The kiss had shaken her to her toes and sent her thoughts flying in every direction. Her insides felt jittery and she unashamedly admitted to herself that she hungered for more.

The dimple in her cheek flirted with him. Looking down into her wide, clear eyes Smith saw no anger, no disgust at what they had shared. Joyous relief washed over him.

“Are you all right now?” Still holding her securely to him, his fingers brushed the hair back over her ear.

“I think so. Rats and snakes scare me to death.”

“I’ll put out some bait and get rid of them. Would you feel better if I brought Buddy in here to stay with you?”

“Oh, yes. Do you think Mrs. Eastwood will mind?”

“We’ll not ask her. I’d think that she’d rather have a dog under her bed than a rat on it.”

Willa’s hands slid from around his neck, down over his shoulders to his chest. She felt no self-consciousness about being close to him, but she did feel the steady thrum of his heart beneath her palm, his breath in her hair, and she was acutely aware of the smooth warm flesh of his body.

“I’m not usually so easily frightened—”

“—Yeah. I remember—”

“I couldn’t reach anything to throw at it.”

“I should have armed you with a skillet.” His eyes teased her. His smile spread charm all over his face.

She grinned back at him. Neither seemed to be in a hurry to separate from the other. Her bare feet were on top of his, his knees against her thighs, his arms about her waist, her palms against his bare chest. They just stood there, looking at each other as if they were the only two people left in the world.

“I thought you’d never get here.”

“I took the stairs three at a time.”

“Were you asleep?”

“No. But I put down a bedroll.”

“In the kitchen?”

“It’s clean.”

“It’s the only clean place in the house. The beds up here need airing.”

“We’ll fix one for you tomorrow. Buddy can stay with you.”

Babbling from Maud brought Willa back to the present.

“She’s about to wake up. I’ll give her just a drop or two of the laudanum.”

“I’ll leave. She’ll get riled up if she sees me.”

“She thinks you want to kill her.”

“I know. What do you think?”

“If you had that in mind, you would have had plenty of opportunity before now.”

“Precisely. Now, I’ll get Buddy. Don’t worry,” he said quickly when he saw the fear on her face. “The rat can’t get in with the door shut. It must have come from that privy room at the end of the hall.”

She stepped down off his feet. His hands squeezed her upper arms before he released her, and he moved reluctantly to the door.

Without him beside her, Willa felt suddenly terribly alone. She stood there, hardly knowing what she was thinking, but fully aware that she wanted to be with him, talk to him, see him smile, hear the sound of his voice and his laughter. She wanted to know what he was thinking and what he dreamed about. She wanted to know why he was so hard on the outside when just beneath the surface there was so much gentleness.

Smith paused at the door and looked back. Green eyes met blue ones and held. This calm, beautiful woman in the borrowed dress of a whore would bring so much warmth and pride to a home with her loving, womanly ways. Her coming had given his world a new brightness. His heart cried out that he didn’t want to love this woman, but he doubted if he could endure the gut-crushing pain of not having her here.

“Smith?”

He grunted a sound.

“What do you want out of life?”

He seemed dumbfounded by the question. His hand came up to move restlessly over his bare chest.

“What any man wants, I guess,” he said quietly. “Peace, contentment . . . someone who cares if I live or die.”

Willa nodded.

He went out the door and closed it behind him.

*  *  *

When Smith returned with Buddy, Charlie was with him.

“Charlie will sit for a while, then Billy will be in to finish the night.”

Willa hugged Buddy’s shaggy head. The dog was glad to see her. He wiggled his tail so hard his back feet almost went out from under him.

“If you’d been here, Buddy, that rat wouldn’t have dared come in.” When she looked at Smith, she was suddenly self-conscious. Her cheeks turned pink and she looked away. “I should be here in case Mrs. Eastwood wakes.”

“You won’t be far. Charlie can get you if he needs you. Tell him what to do.”

“When she wakes up, call me. I give her a couple drops of the laudanum. Other than that when she’s restless, I move her a little by pulling on the sheet under her to take the pressure off her hip.”

“Got that, Charlie? If she wakes, call Willa. She’ll be in the kitchen. Buddy will stay here with you and discourage any visitors.”

Before Willa could utter a protest, Smith’s hand in the middle of her back was urging her from the room and down the stairs. When they reached the kitchen, he moved away from her and cleared the kitchen table down to the wooden surface. She watched him, wondering what in the world he was doing. He quickly unrolled a bedroll atop the table.

“Your bed,” he said. “I knew you’d not like sleeping on the floor.”

“Is this your bedroll?”

“Got any objections to that? No lice. No bedbugs.”

“I . . . don’t want to put you out.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll stretch out on the floor. Need help getting up there?”

“No. It’s just that I’ve not slept on a table before.”

“I have. On ’em and under ’em in every jug saloon from Laredo to Virginia City.” He bit off his words sharply. His expression showed none of the warmth she’d seen earlier in the room upstairs.

Willa nodded her understanding of his meaning. He was putting up a barrier. He didn’t want her to make too much of what had happened between them. He wasn’t a man who would let a woman get close to him. He wasn’t the kind of man to give his heart. She had to be careful or he would take hers and smash it into little pieces.

Her mother had said that someday a man would come into her life and fill it with his presence. He would cherish her. She would love him and she would give him children. She had cautioned Willa not to allow what had happened between her parents to influence her when she chose a man to share her life. For a brief moment, Willa had thought Smith was that man.

Thinking of the bleak, lonely future ahead, her heart felt old and heavy. Her eyes moved away from his face, but not before she saw bleakness in his eyes and he saw utter disillusionment in hers.

After she was settled, Smith blew out the lamp. The hall lamp still burned and a faint ribbon of light came through the door. He lay down on his blanket, staring at the ceiling, assembling and sorting out his thoughts. He had not meant for the intimate, soul-stirring experience he’d shared with her upstairs to happen.

Dammit!
When he was close to her, he lost his head.
He
begrudgingly admitted that every night since he’d met her he had fantasized about holding her, warm and naked, in his arms. Hell, what man in his right mind
wouldn’t
want to hold her. He had a hunger that tore at his groin like any other man. It was that age-old male urge. That’s all it was.

Why had she allowed him to kiss her? She had participated openly, completely. Had she been carried away by the novelty of a romantic interlude with a whiskey-soaked sot? She had called him that and also a crude, pitiful excuse for a human being. When she found out more about him, she would look at him with contempt in her beautiful eyes. He didn’t know if he could endure that.

In the quiet of the night, Smith reached the conclusion that this was a woman he could give his heart to, but with whom he could not share his life. Being with her would be like living with a keg of powder that could erupt at any moment. When she found out how Oliver had died, she would despise him, leave him, and his life would be shattered.

Willa lay on her side, her head resting on her bent arm. She had made a complete fool of herself, and tempestuous feelings of embarrassment were threatening to overpower her. She held her lips tightly between her teeth and swallowed the lumps clogging her throat. She was bone-weary, she told herself, so tired she was not thinking straight and that was the reason why she felt so weepy and alone. She turned her face into Smith’s blankets. The scent of his body was there.

To stave off the sweet memory of being held close against his naked chest, and the warm comfort of his arms, she reminded herself of when she first saw him lying in the hay at Byers’ Station. That was the real Smith Bowman: gunman, hell-raiser, and, according to Mrs. Eastwood . . . murderer.

The full weight of her wretchedness hit her, sending her into the black pit of despair that not even tears could reach.

17

^“
M
a’am, I hate like sin to wake ya.”

Willa awakened instantly as she had done each time Charlie had needed her. This time Billy Coe’s face hovered over hers.

“It’s all right.” As she crawled down off the table, she glanced at the corner where Smith had spread his blanket. He was gone.

“She’s a blabbin’ and buckin’ somethin’ awful. She ain’t makin’ no sense a’tall.”

“She’s in terrible pain. What time is it?”

“It’s dawn, ma’am. Roosters is crowin’.”

“I’ll have to give her a few drops of the laudanum and hope it’ll carry her over until the doctor gets here.”

“She don’t like the look of my face none a’tall. I left the boy holdin’ her on the bed,” Billy said as they went up the stairs.

“Charlie’s still here?”

“I tol’ him to go on back to the bunkhouse, but he curled up on the floor with the dog.”

Maud was out of her head with the fever and was uttering
every obscenity Willa had ever heard and some she hadn’t. The woman must have been raised in a saloon, Willa thought as she forced water with the laudanum down her throat. When Maud calmed, Willa asked Billy and Charlie to leave the room. As soon as they were alone, she bared the woman’s body and bathed her with cold water in hopes of bringing her fever down.

Maud muttered about Fanny and Oliver, but mostly about Smith.

“He’ll kill me.” She looked into Willa’s eyes and spoke as calmly as if she were in her right mind. “He killed Oliver, you know. He ain’t got no right to be in my house after what he done.”

“He’s not in the house. Don’t worry. He won’t hurt you. I’ll stay with you and take care of you.” Willa spoke soothingly as if she were talking to a child.

After Maud fell asleep, Willa continued to lay the cool wet towels on her forehead, arms and chest. She worked until sunup. Then, realizing she had done all she could do, she covered the woman and sank down in the chair. Buddy, lying at her feet, whined and licked her ankle.

“You need to go outside, don’t you, old friend?” She stroked the dog’s head before she got wearily to her feet.

Willa closed the bedroom door behind her and blew out the hall lamp. Buddy followed her down the stairs to the kitchen.

Charlie was pouring cold water into the coffeepot to settle the grounds, and Jo Bell, her curly hair wild about her sullen face, sat at the table.

“Well, ma’am, I hope yore satisfied.”

Willa looked blankly at Jo Bell and then turned her head. She didn’t know what the girl was talking about and had no desire to find out.

“Good morning, Charlie.”

“Mornin’. Coffee’s ready. Billy said to come down for bacon and biscuits when you’ve a mind to.”

Willa followed Buddy out the back door and stood for a moment on the porch. It was a warm, cloudless morning. There was not a whisper of a breeze to turn the blades on the windmill. Chickens scattered when Buddy walked out into the yard, even though he paid them not the slightest attention. Smith’s horse stood saddled and waiting in front of the cookshack at the end of the bunkhouse. In the distance jagged mountain peaks were muted by a soft purple haze.

She stepped off the porch and went down the path toward the outhouse that sat back amid bridal wreath bushes. She had used the chamber pot in Mrs. Eastwood’s room sparingly knowing that she would have to empty it, and now her bladder ached for relief. She expected a facility equal to if not worse than the one at the stage station and was pleasantly surprised that, although it was not entirely odor-free, it was clean, and sheets of newspaper had been provided.